you should be smart enough to realize that bringing up the space shuttle's 40ton dead weight each time is contrary to optimization of the rocket premise. so much so that 30 years of it constitutes criminal negligence. at a cost per shot around 2bn$ they sometimes bring up only 5tons of cargo. think about it.

so instead of joining the establishment who is at best incompetent and more likely simply evil, I propose the following:

make a simple effective launch vehicle capable of bringing a minimum payload into LEO. it could be as little as 5kg. here's why it should be easy and cheap and you've probably spent much more already toying with your frankly irrelevant hover thing:

the jet bourne pegasus system can lift around 500kg into LEO and it has maybe 10-15ton worth of fuel. it would stand to reason a much smaller device could bring up 5kg right? maybe as small as 1 ton or even smaller.
and what does solid fuel cost? in the order of magnitude of 1000$/ton?
carbon fiber tube filled with solid propellant anad a simple nozzle, a 2nd and 3rd stage based on the controllable rocket engines you have already built. how much could it cost..
and how cool would it be with a 5kg satellite of your own sending down beautiful live HDTV pictures from orbit. so that the world can see what they don't want us to see.

you have to show the world how systematically ineffective the others are. but first you have to realize there is a problem.

I had a lokk to the homepage of Air Launch LLC just this moment. Like Pegasus theit QuickReach will be launched in the air but it weighs 72,000 lbs to launch 1000 lbs into LEO. The altitude of launch is 32,000 ft. = 9,600 m.

In so far your numbers might be wrong. The problem may be that the boosters and the External Tank aren't included into the considerations.

As far as the competition for the lunar lander is concerned Armadillo Aerospace's vehicle needs to be considered under lunar conditions and everything is allright while the XPRIZe-vehicle was (is still?) meant suborbital and is not adressed to NASA.

But what about it all including your post? What new creative ideas are going to be born?

according to wiki the initial pegasus weighed a total of 18.500kg.
I stand by my numbers.
the idea is to show what can be done. to show that satellites can be sent up for petty cash instead of billions. to show how easy it truly is. the world will marvel and be filled with hope

Your post is disturbingly similiar to questions I asked my father when I was 9 years old. Everything seemed so easy and obvious from my 9 year old mentality.

If you've followed the updates on the Armadillo Aerospace website and news reports from interviews of John Carmack, there is no way you could have missed his repeated points about how difficult this has been to date. He indicates a desire to end up in orbit in the mid-term. I have yet to read his long-term plans.

As to your desire to see 5kg packages orbited, I'm astonished. What useful orbital article do you envision massing 5kg? Certainly not a crewed vehicle such as AA has indicated their goal encompasses.

However, I am excited to find a worthy individual such as yourself that finds all this childs play. Please note for us the website address of your project so that we can follow your simple, low-cost, awe-inspiring, mission to orbit 5kg of HD camera, transmitter and power source into orbit. I will be thrilled to see this, as will I'm sure, the rest of the world.

In the mean time, SpaceX is spending a lot of money developing the technology to orbit a useful mass into orbit. Currently, they are finding the process just as difficult and expensive as John Carmack describes. In order to assuage your obvious need to criticize, I would recommend you direct your attention to THOSE DIRTY ROTTEN SCOUNDRELS OVER AT ARMADILLO AEROSPACE THAT INSIST ON WATCHING ME TWITCH WITH OBVIOUS WITHDRAWL SYMPTOMS AS I PINE AWAY FOR THE SMALLEST NUGGET OF UPDATE ON THE BEST SHOW PLAYING ONLINE. I HAVE OFFERED TO PURCHASE EXTRA LOOT FROM THEIR STORE, SWEEP THE FLOOR OF THE HANGAR, AND EVEN POLISH THE HUBCAPS ON THE ROCKET CRANE TRUCK TO NO AVAIL.

So, perhaps a small effort on your part to gently criticize them for neglecting me during my time of need would be appropriate.

Marc, however nice AAs work has been so far it will amount to nothing if they rely on Nasa since they are professional stallers managing only token progress. If you would like to see something really great you should at least join my call for John to go it alone. Nasa will dangle a carrot until you die as they have wasted the last 30 years.
think about it

Where on earth did you came up with the idea, that Armadillo Aerospace is "relying on NASA" or "catering" towards them?

And as an equally interesting question: in what regard? Only because they got a contract from NASA for developing/doing research on a new type of engine? How can that be a bad thing? If something useful is developed along the way, than it doesn't matter to me who is going to use it in the end, be it NASA, AA themselves or somebody else. If the research fails at some point, well then AA has learned something that they currently can't read in any book (there haven't been all that many methane engines up to date).

So again, what is bad about that?

Oh and as a side note: As far as I can tell from the information floating around the Web at the moment, AA's current focus seems to be the Rocket Racing League. Something that has nothing to do with NASA at all.

You're also fixated on these "last 30 years." So, you must be talking about Apollo.

Good grief, man. Get over it.

NASA doesn't vote for their own spending. The US congress does. Apollo was killed by a congress that had no vision for the future of manned spaceflight. Nothing, and I mean nothing, government run and managed is ever efficient. That doesn't mean you turn a deaf ear to R&D money they might offer for pure research.

The reality of this industry is that it takes gobs of money to make it happen. John Carmack has some and spends it with frugality. Elon Musk has a bunch more and is having to spend heavily to realize his goals. Space is pricey. As John alludes to in one of his FAQ's, if you want to talk smack, bring working hardware. You're falling into the trap Rocketplane lasted too long under. "Just give us the money. We'll make it happen." Well, they got a bunch of money and have apparently blown it all without generating a single operational article. On a comparitive pittance, AA actually flys.

And, where in the world do you get that AA is a NASA run project? Because they compete in the LLC? Come on, Dan. Do some reading. Start with the FAQ's on the AA site. Then read the updates from the beginning. Then, launch a news web crawler keyed to AA. You will find a consistent message from John C and crew. It may not be what you like, but at least it's realistic. To be taken seriously, you need to post more than pie in the sky theories. Let's see the hardware. Let's see the tests. Let's see the failures. They're all there on AA's site.

In simple terms, AA are just contracted by NASA to do some work. Just like a software contractor may be contracted by NASA to do some work. That doesn't mean they are tied to NASA, relying on them, or catering to them. It's just another revenue stream, and can only be a good thing - JC's cash won't last forever!!

If they were tied to NASA they would not have anything flying yet - they would still be doing the paperwork!

Marc, you're a petty groupie trying to score ass kissing points by defending John from my criticism. I'm not dwelling on Apollo and Nasa has plenty money. 17bn$ per year. enough to do 100 times more than they do. and I don't have to do it myself for the observation to be right.

James, for the record I'm not opposed to taking money from Nasa and putting it to good use. the more the better.
I am however suggesting that it's foolish to work on a lunar vehicle hoping nasa will take it there. even in the remote event that they did, it would be so prolonged and restricted that it wouldn't amount to anything anyway.

a small example of Nasa's incompetence: in the first month the mars MER spirit rover moved at an average speed of 1/100 that of a garden snail. this is not an exaggeration. of 7-8 camera onboard the rover not a single one was a color camera so we could get even a moderately accurate impression of the mars colors. instead they have a few very narrow band filter with which they can produce a very inacurrate color approximation (spare me your mindless objections, I know the technical details)
to make it even worse, when they try to make a color image you can see how the sun has moved between the 3 color channelse because its so slow that it takes something like 15 minutes per filter to take a picture.

Besides, you'd have to get me a bunch of membership cards. I root for all of the rocketry and space endeavors. We need to get off this planet.

The difference is, I recognize a remarkable and successful group of rocketeers when I see them. And, I don't blame NASA for being an inefficient government agency. Uh, news alert. They are a government agency. Hence inefficient. Nature of the beast. Moreover, AA isn't expecting NASA to take equipment to the moon. The development work they do is on propulsion.

Face it, Dan. If your concept was as self-evident as you say, you'd see it flying today from Lockheed or Boeing and just priced sky high.

Agreed, Dan. YOU don't have to do it yourself. But, until somebody does, it's just a theory of yours. One I sort of like the flavor of, but then, I don't have to solve the problems nor fund them. Those that do seem to shy away from it for some reason. Since it's their money, I'm thinking it's probably a pretty good reason.

BTW - Check out SpaceX. That whole program is designed to make orbital insertion orders of magnitude cheaper. AA is looking to do sub-orbitals and move up from there. Huge difference in development program.

no Marc, it's not required anybody do it for it to be a sound approach. some of us are intelligent enough to understand without doing.

and no, it can be ever so obvious and people will still be oblivious. it's a common fallacy to assume that the establishment has done everything good others can think of. Nasa is effectively populated by morons. there might be some few that are reasonably sharp but they are marginalized by the culture. a culture that has been allowed to exist for so long because the population overall is incredibly stupid too. sheep. like you.
people don't think and that is why they fail. John is having fun playing around with rockets. it's decent work but until he wakes up and realizes the gravity of the situation he will be entirely ineffective. no pun intended.

I'm a genius Marc. I'm not your peer or yet another random guy online. this is not a debate in which your kneejerk opinion is equal to mine. as I said you are groupie trying to win points with John while speaking nonsense. if you want to be better than that I suggest you start trying. you can be so much more but if you don't try you are certain to fail and your current state is not impressive.

I think I'll get myself some popcorn and a coke, because this is starting to become quite amusing...

Mr. Dan Frederiksen, what exactly have you accomplished again in the field of space related development/research that gives you the "right" to insult anyone at NASA, in the NewSpace Community or even an insignificant "NewSpace Nerd" here on these forums? I think I've kind of missed your point.

As far as this thread goes you have showed a lack of understanding of Armadillo's approach to rocket engineering, an overly negative view of NASA's achievements so far and a huge portion of arrogance. That's not all that much to brag about.

... but what is my humble opinion compared to your holy omniscience...